Kylie
Jenner, one of the many recent high-profile victims of
hacks.Gerardo Mora/Getty Images for
Sugar Factory American Brasserie

One of the most important tips that security experts have for
staying safe online is that you never reuse passwords.

That way, if one service you use gets hacked or compromised, then
all your other accounts remain safe and secure.

It's a lesson that a lot of celebrities would do well to learn.

Over the last few weeks, there has been a deluge of high-profile
figures getting hacked. Everyone from Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg to singer Drake has been targeted, and the
culprit appears to be reused passwords.

This is thanks to a number of mega-hacks that happened years ago,
but only properly surfaced recently, including MySpace and
LinkedIn.

Drake, meanwhile, has become a victim as a result of the MySpace
breach. The hacker (called "Aiden")
told Gizmodo's William Turton that he found the singer's
password in the MySpace data dump, the only change being
different capitalisation.

There are plenty more recent celebrity hacks just like this.
Actor and singer
Jack Black,
Kylie Jenner, Lana Del Rey, the
NFL, and many others have been targeted. It's not confirmed
that reused passwords from LinkedIn, MySpace, and other old hacks
are responsible for all of these attacks — but given the timing,
it seems very likely.

The attacks are by-and-large fairly harmless. The hackers are
posting shout-outs to themselves and friends, and using graphic
language, but it's easy for Twitter (and other sites) to undo the
damage and restore the accounts to their rightful owners.

What's more worrying is the question of what other hacks are
currently happening that the general public can't see. If someone
has reused a password once, they have likely reused it multiple
times — meaning that more sensitive accounts like email addresses
and cloud storage services are also at risk of getting broken
into.

Back in 2014, hundreds of intimate nude photos of dozens of
female celebrities were leaked online. They are believed to have
been stolen from the victims' Apple iCloud accounts by hackers
able to bypass the passwords.

The MySpace and LinkedIn data dumps could help hackers steal
intimate and private data from celebrities (and
ordinary people!) all over again.

Musical
artist Drake during the 2014 NBA All Star three point contest at
Smoothie King Center.Bob Donnan / USA
TODAY Sports

A Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement: "A
number of other online services have seen millions of passwords
stolen in the past several weeks. We recommend people use a
unique, strong password for Twitter."

Experts recommend you use a different, strong password for every
app, site, and service you sign up for — managing them with a
Password Manager app if necessary. And use
two-factor authentication, so knowing the password alone
isn't enough to break into an account.

If you don't, your reused passwords may one day come back to
haunt you — as celebs are now finding out the hard way.